Hey I love the feed back. And to be more specific I understand the need for sanitation, the sources of bad smells, and I did not mean to play down sanitation but the worrying that one gets as a beginner. As a beginner I remember hovering over my fermenter's airlock waiting for bubbles and smelling the gas to see if it was rancid which it was. Its a all bit nerve wreaking and have had friends who end up opening the container because they over concern them selves with things they did or may have not done. So to put it plainly once you get it in the fermenter its time to chill, short of sticking a spoon full of dirt in your brew chances are it will come out alright.

All you need in life is your feet to carry your weight your hands to make your way and your brain to guide you to the bar, but after a few beers don't expect it to show you the way back.

A better way to phrase this is: If you follow thorough sanitation practice beer is pretty resilient.

I am testing this on my current batch of porter. Pitched at 65 degrees and put it in fridge at 63. Everything is going good bubbles in 5 hours. Come home next day look in garage and fridge temp is 74. Oh crap don't know how long. Move fridge inside and have to move beer bucket. Temp gets down to 62 by end of night and still have bubbles.

Come home next day. Wife hired a painter to paint dinning room, beer and beer fridge have been moved twice. Vodka is still in airlock but have floaties in airlock.

I've decided to let it sit in primary for 5 weeks instead of 4. I will be pleasantly suprise if it is good.

I kind of agree with OP, not with regard to sanitation, but just in general terms I certainly see a lot of threads where people are obviously worrying too much.

Y'know, stuff like 'my sparge water was 171 degrees instead of 170, should I dump my beer?' or 'my airlock is only bubbling once every 4.7 seconds, is this OK?'

I am a bit of a perfectionist and I do try to nail everything as close as possible, but even I (with the wisdom obtained after 4 batches!) know that there are certain things you either can't do anything about or shouldn't worry about anyway...

Sanitize right and there goes 90% of your concern. the beer will basicly make it self from there on out no matter how you try to mess it up.

That's probably true, but I still say it's the "Ugly Baby Syndrome". Lots of brewers think their beer is better than it really is, because they made it and they love it. (Just like a very ugly baby!).

The thing is, I've judged a few comps. It's enough to say that I've had plenty of ****ty beers by guys who thought their beer was "not too bad".

I'm a very relaxed brewer, and I agree that worrying too much isn't going to help. But to say that beer is hard to mess up just isn't true. It might be hard to totally ruin a beer, but it's much harder to make an excellent beer than a bad one.

__________________Broken Leg BreweryGiving beer a leg to stand on since 2006

That's probably true, but I still say it's the "Ugly Baby Syndrome". Lots of brewers think their beer is better than it really is, because they made it and they love it. (Just like a very ugly baby!).

The thing is, I've judged a few comps. It's enough to say that I've had plenty of ****ty beers by guys who thought their beer was "not too bad".

I'm a very relaxed brewer, and I agree that worrying too much isn't going to help. But to say that beer is hard to mess up just isn't true. It might be hard to totally ruin a beer, but it's much harder to make an excellent beer than a bad one.

In fairness he said "beer" not "great beer". I have made some crappy batches but at the end of the day it's still beer. I think some of the more veteran brewers have found the harmonic balance between lazy and crazy when it comes to sanitization and other techniques with brewing.